As many know me by now I am Airbrush Items used: In this article I will be airbrushing
Dreams, or Fred Wagner. I was born and a Snow Leopard t-shirt. I am using Wicked Col-
raised in Western NY and spent some time ors reduced with Wicked Reducer. The Colors
in Fort Walton Beach Florida airbrushing on will be Opaque White, Black, Blue, Violet, Cus-
Choctahatchie Island for Mark Rush. Now I am tom mixed Grey and Brown. Airbrushes used
back in Western NY in the town of Fairport. I are Iwata HP-BCS, HP-BC, HP-BC2 and a HP-C.
have been airbrushing for 31 years now and I I used these mainly to save time with changing
have been drawing and painting for as long as colors. T-shirt is 100% cotton, Prism projec-
I can remember. I have no plans for stopping tor.
any time soon.
First I spent several hours searching for just the right reference photos.
Having a good reference that is sharp and clear makes a world of dif-
ference. These are the two I found on the Internet. I chose the half face
for the front to be an eye catcher for passers by; then the full face for
the back, so people could stop and look without feeling embarrassed by
looking at me, this is kind of a mind game and help get inquiries. I used
my Prism Projector to get quick reference lines onto the shirt without
having to erase possible mistakes and keep it clean. I draw as light as
possible using a soft graphite pencil. The drawing includes Eyes, Nose
Mouth, Spots and several reference lines for direction of fur.
On this design I have chosen to do the black first. Normally I would do the fur first, but my refer-
ence lines were so light I did not want to loose them in the fur. I stay very loose with the spots
because I know I will be reworking them latter. I pay close attention to the direction of the spots
on the fur, so that they match direction of the surrounding fur. I also work the areas around
the eyes, nose and mouth. The fur is made by dagger strokes and then misting over them for
blending.
Now it is the most time consuming part of the illustration. I have custom mixed a gray that is two
ounces of opaque white, five drops of blue and three drops of black. I start by studying the refer-
ence and the main shapes of the underlying structure of the leopard. This helps to understand the
direction and flow of the fur. Using a back and forth motion when doing all my dagger strokes and
I usually start between the eyes. I constantly look at my reference so that I know I am following the
correct direction and keeping the length of my strokes correct. I will work my way down the nose
and then onto the cheeks. Then I will work my way around the eyes and up the forehead, after that
I usually will work the ears and down the outer face to the bottom of the chin. Lastly I will do the
body followed by working the background. In this case you may have noticed the background and
body took some drastic changes over the course of the illustration. One important thing to note
is not to completely fill the illustration with dagger strokes. Leave room between strokes, so that
the fur doses not become one solid color and look flat. After finishing with your dagger stroke mist
over the painting with the same color and again not to heavy as to fill in and ending up with a solid
color, next take a break because you deserve it.
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